Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The question's simple and I don't think there's necessarily a "right" answer though I'm sure you'll be able to guess where I lean.

But before I get to my question, I need to give you some background.

This Sunday's local paper brought with it a magazine called, Ottawa Family Life. In the magazine was an article written by a local dietitian. The article was about calcium.

The author (and this time I'm going to leave the RD's name out as unlike other times this one isn't shilling for the food industry), who clearly subscribes to the there's a calcium emergency out there and milk's a magic, miracle food camps, gives a whole long list of things parents should do to ensure their kids get enough dairy.

Among the suggestions:

Make milk the main beverage at meals.

Make hot cocoa with milk instead of water.

Make cream soups with milk instead of water.

Have chocolate milk as a snack.

Choose milk or chocolate milk as the post-game sport drink of choice.

Drink milk yourself to show your child how important it is.

They also recommend that if your child is lactose intolerant that you look for vitamin D and calcium fortified juices to serve them.

Now I'm not going to get into the fallacy of a societal calcium emergency or magic milk claims (though for readers who are curious where my thoughts lie - weight bearing exercise and adequate vitamin D intake are likely more important for bone health than calcium), I'm going to focus on calories. They're never mentioned.

So here's a registered dietitian telling parents to serve their children chocolate milk as snacks, actually suggesting that kids need a post-game sports drink (they certainly don't) and that it ought to be chocolate milk, that kids who are lactose intolerant get calcium and vitamin D from fortified juices (despite calls to limit juice consumption in children to 1/2 - 1 cup daily) and that basically any dish that can be spiked with milk should be.

Chocolate milk twice a day, even just a glass twice a day, would provide your child with the caloric equivalent of nearly a litre of Coca Cola a day along with 12 teaspoons of sugar.

Making this all the more astounding to me is the fact that when I Googled this dietitian I found out that they work (or at least worked) at the Ottawa Civic's Weight Management Clinic and therefore is certainly no stranger to the risks of not paying attention to calories.

Given the problem of adult and childhood obesity, should that be an overarching consideration when writing articles or giving talks and interviews that provide dietary advice to society, especially those involving recommendations for children?

(Another way to think about it? If 65-70% of the adult population routinely developed scurvy over the course of their lives, do you think there'd ever be an article written on dietary advice for children that didn't include a discussion on the importance of citrus fruit?)

Subscribe via Email

About Me

Family doc, Assistant Prof. at the University of Ottawa, Author of The Diet Fix, and founder of Ottawa's non-surgical Bariatric Medical Institute - a multi-disciplinary, ethical, evidence-based nutrition and weight management centre. Nowadays I'm more likely to stop drugs than start them. You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook.

Creative Commons License

Disclaimer

Any medical discussion on this page is intended to be of a general nature only. This page is not designed to give specific medical advice. If you have a medical problem you should consult your own physician for advice specific to your own situation. The mission of this blog is to provide readers with critical appraisals of nutrition and weight related claims, products and policies so as to allow readers to make more informed decisions in those areas.

The author will not post anything related to any of his patients personal medical histories or circumstances without their explicit written permission.

No personal information is collected by this website. If you'd like to leave a comment on an article, you can do so on this blog's Facebook page.

This site is hosted free of charge by Google's Blogger platform and is intended not only for allied health professionals but also for interested members of the general public.

If you have any concerns feel free to email me at yonifreedhoff [{@}] gmail dot . com